Your Wedding Photography Checklist

Your Wedding Photography Checklist

Your wedding photography checklist

What should be on it?

If you Google for “wedding photography checklist” you will find a plethora of samples from brides and photographers alike. Pinterest is full of them (more on that later). I will admit that when I firs thought about photographing weddings that this was something that I thought I would need and went in search of one. What I quickly realized was that while checking a list to make sure I had gotten everything, “Bride having fun getting ready”. CHECK…..I would likely be missing many moments that we naturally occuring. OR…in my quest to make sure I got the “Bride having fun getting ready” shot, I would ask the bride…. “OK, now look like you’re having fun getting ready.” Ummm…no!

This is not how I operate. How awkward would that feel for your photographer to ask you,…Now, please have a sentimental moment with your mother before you step into your dress. Yeah, not really going to make for a nice moment will it? Instead, those moments need to flow. Do you really want me pulling you away from your receiving line to go make a heart formation with your wedding party? Wouldn’t you rather enjoy your moments as they happen?

Now back to the Pinterest boards. Many brides love pinterest. I get it. It’s visual and as a photographer, I am visual, too. But leave pinterest for ideas about decorating only. Don’t use it for a source for poses or “moments” that you want to recreate. Then you’d be just fabricating someone else’s moments and not enjoying your’s. And, big secret here….those moments, lovely posed shots, many are stylized shoots with actors/models and not real weddings. Don’t believe everything you see.